Healthcare

Access To Affordable, Quality Healthcare Is A Human Right

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Ty Pinkins believes healthcare is a fundamental human right for which we should always fight. That's why he will work to see that every Mississippian is adequately covered and no family goes broke from paying the expenses of filling a prescription, or urgent medical care.

 

When Ty was in high school, his father was an active sportsman, a star athlete on the community softball team. Later Ty's dad became the community team's coach and leader, mentored young men to do something constructive with their lives. When Ty left for the military, his dad was one of the healthiest people he knew; but when Ty returned home several years later, as a consequence of diabetes his dad was a double amputee and nearly blind. Because of this, his father had to quit working on the farm, lost the one vehicle the family depended on, and nearly lost the mobile home they had lived in for years. 

 

Too many Mississippians face significant challenges in accessing affordable healthcare. That's why he supports the expansion of Medicaid in Mississippi, which would make an additional 220,000 Mississippians eligible for coverage for vital and life-saving healthcare.

 

Medicaid expansion benefits our rural communities across the state in three ways:

 

• Mississippi taxpayers already pay into, and have been paying into, Medicaid through their Federal taxes. This means that we have been paying for a benefit that the citizens of other states are taking advantage of, while we have been basically refusing to take back our own money to help fund our healthcare. We have, essentially, been double charged: we have paid for Medicaid, but are still having to pay out of our state taxes for Mississippians who would be eligible for expanded Medicaid assistance but currently aren’t getting it.

• Hospitals in rural communities have been closing, leaving Mississippians unsafe and at risk. This is because those hospitals depend on Medicaid to help pay for Mississippi residents who can’t afford the stratospherically high cost of health care. The refusal to expand Medicaid has crippled those vital medical facilities, and sent many of them into a downward spiral toward closure.

• Many Mississippians are now having to drive nearly a hundred miles one way for even the most basic medical care–let alone urgent emergency treatment. Medicaid expansion would save lives by ensuring that all Mississippi citizens have medical care close enough to be effective in a crisis.

 

In 2019, two-thirds of all US bankruptcies were caused by healthcare: either from high cost or time out of work. We spend over 14% of our GDP on healthcare, but we are not even in the top 50 countries worldwide when it comes to value for money. We are not getting the bang for our buck–that’s simply bad business!